In the End
by piecesofflair
Summary: I died on a Tuesday. That day is etched in my memory forever.
1. Tuesday, 10:00 AM

A/N: I was reading through the archives and realized that Carolyn is really underrepresented, so I'm writing from her POV this time. For this fic, you have to imagine MC in an established relationship.

I have seen Heaven, and it's not what I expected.

The floors aren't made of clouds and no one has wings made of white feathers.

There's no set of shimmering golden gates and St. Peter isn't standing around in a white robe holding a checklist. God isn't an old man with a long white beard and a giant throne.

Heaven isn't like what you see in the movies. It's much simpler than that.

It's something you can't possibly anticipate because there's nothing like it in life. No matter what you do, you'll never be prepared.

I would know. I'm already here.

I died on a Tuesday. That day is etched in my memory forever.

It was a normal day for the majority of the eight million people in New York...and the complete opposite for me.

My morning was uneventful. I woke up at the loud buzzing from my alarm, just like always. And just like always, Mike rolled over instead of actually getting up. I untangled myself from him and the navy blue sheets we shared to make some coffee. (We're cops, we thrive on the stuff.) Mike came in a few minutes later to kiss me and get a cup for himself.

We drove to work, downing more coffee when we got there, just like always.

The four of us talked about nothing in particular, enjoying the friendship that had sprouted among us.

Eventually we went to our respective desks and actually started to work.

Mike and I found a new lead on our case and decided to go talk to him right away.

It wasn't supposed to happen. We were just visiting a potential witness's apartment. It was only meant to be to be a conversation.

But nothing ever turns out exactly like you want it to when you're in our line of work.

This is the part where my memory turns fuzzy.

The ride to Calvin Hewitt's building was typical. Traffic on Columbus Avenue, cabbies cutting everyone off, the usual. As New Yorkers, we're almost immune to it all.

Hewitt lived in apartment 4C. I remember being the first one to the door. I remember having said door shut in my face when I showed him my badge. I remember calling through the door that we just wanted to talk to him about Juliana Carter.

I don't remember how I ended up on the hallway floor with a bullet in my stomach.

I remember Mike kneeling over me. I remember him pressing the wound to stop the bleeding and yelling into his phone about getting a bus. I remember the tears that fell from his eyes. I'd never seen him cry before.

I remember him saying things through his hysteria that I knew he'd never be able to say normally. He told me that I couldn't leave him, to just hold on, that he was so sorry for anything he'd ever done to me, so sorry that he hadn't protected me. He told me he loved me, that he always would love me, that he was so sorry for any times he hadn't shown it.

I remember reaching up to touch his face. I remember trying to tell him that it was okay, that he shouldn't be sorry, that I loved him too, but I didn't have the strength to talk anymore.

I remember smiling - a small, weak smile, but it was all I could manage.

I remember spending my last few seconds on Earth holding his hand.

His eyes were the last thing I saw.

Then everything faded away.

It's a strange feeling, dying. You'd expect it to be uncomfortable or bizarre or even painful, but it's not.

Death is more like a merciful release. The end of all the pain and suffering and sadness of life. It's like finally falling asleep after staying up all night crying. Like seeing the clock tick to 5:00 on a Friday afternoon at work. Like finding out the who in a whodunit.

It's not so bad, really. Down on Earth, people are so afraid of death when they really have no reason to be. It's inevitable. It happens to everyone eventually and it's no use trying to change it. It's like the prayer that the nuns used to say in school. _God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change._

It's easier than you think. You just have to let go.

Dying feels like…

It's hard to describe because there's nothing quite like it on Earth. The phenomenon of soul leaving body is too ethereal for the living to understand. The closest mortal sensation is the feeling of floating to the surface after swimming to the bottom.

Contrary to popular belief, death isn't really the end. It's just a transition of one kind of life to the next. Human to divine, brief to eternal, tragic to perfect, mortal to unending.

The EMTs only took 4 minutes to arrive, but it was too late. I was already too far gone.

They loaded me into the ambulance, frantically searching for a pulse, a breath, anything to signal that I wasn't gone for good. No one objected when Mike jumped inside with me, still holding on to my hand.

While they worked, I watched him. That was by far the hardest part of dying, seeing the lost and hopeless look on his face as they tried to save me. He didn't deserve this kind of loss. No one did.

I didn't even make it to the hospital. I passed right there in the ambulance en route.

I felt my whole body go limp, my fingers slackening as my arm hit the cold metal bars of the stretcher.

I was pronounced dead at exactly 10:24 AM.

Mike never let go of my hand.


	2. Tuesday, 11:30 AM

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, especially whoever nominated it for a fic award! BTW, Greer Bontro and everyone else who commented on the viewpoint, I'm writing from Caro's POV because I just read _The Lovely Bones_ for my American Lit summer project.

* * *

A funny thing happens when you die.

Your world ends, but you don't know it. Your soul leaves you, but you can't see it. Your body remains, but you can't feel it.

All at once, you lose everything you ever knew and gain everything you ever imagined.

* * *

They took my body to the hospital to clean me up and perform an autopsy. Mike stayed in the waiting area, oblivious to my presence beside the vending machines a few yards away.

I watched him as he sat in one of the plastic chairs, the really uncomfortable day-glow orange kind that waiting rooms always seem to have, as if the people there aren't in enough pain already. His posture said it all – he was slumped over, his elbows resting on his knees, cradling his head in his hands. He looked…defeated.

His mind had stopped racing and settled on one topic: me. The hospital traffic went unnoticed around him, taking a distant second in his consciousness. He just sat and thought of me.

I could tell he blamed himself for my death. He couldn't stop replaying the morning, trying over and over to pinpoint when everything had gone wrong. Trying to figure out how things had gone from routine to disastrous in under a minute.

I hated that he faulted himself. Neither of us could have known what would happen. Even first-grade detectives can't predict the future.

I guess that's the risk we all take when we sign up for the academy. You become a cop, thinking you'll get a kick out of trying to "protect and serve" eight million people. You might even do something heroic one day and get a nice shiny medal from the mayor.

Then you realize that you aren't expected to care about a lot of the city, just the ones who pay their taxes and aren't hookers or aliens or homeless. It doesn't take long before you're shoving people up against the wall just to get some information, and you start to wonder what happened to the idealistic, if naïve, person that you used to be. Everybody starts out as a true believer until the real world smacks them upside the head. Wearing the badge wears at you until one day you find yourself nearly blackmailing a witness into testifying against someone who will almost certainly kill them if they do. Bodies, perps, witnesses, lawyers, judges, families, accomplices…they all run together after awhile.

* * *

I felt the tears start to fall as I watched him sitting there. (I bet you didn't know the dead could cry, huh?) It was painful to watch him struggle like that, to know that he was in pain and I couldn't do a damn thing. I wanted so badly to go over and hug him, to let him know that he'd done nothing wrong. I wanted to tell him that I'd always be with him, knowing he'd laugh at how cliché it was to say that. It was so hard to see him feeling so lonely and isolated.

He wasn't alone for long. A few minutes later, Deakins, Goren, and Eames burst through the glass doors. Their appearance was enough to cause me to smile for the first time since my murder. I knew I could count on them to support Mike in all the ways I couldn't anymore.

As they nearly sprinted toward where he sat, I realized that they didn't know I was dead. They'd obviously been informed of the shooting, but of my demise, they had no idea. My smile faded as I watched them cautiously approach the place where he sat. Their faces showed the conflict inside of simultaneously wondering and not wanting to know. Their footsteps penetrated his deep reverie, causing him to look up from the spot on the floor he'd been staring at without actually seeing. His expression wordlessly told them everything they needed to know. My tears returned as they reacted to the unspoken truth.

It was almost funny how differently the three of them reacted. Alex instantly dissolved into tears, crying for me as the friend I'd become. She collapsed onto one of the orange chairs next to Mike and sobbed, not even trying to be discreet.

Bobby's eyes widened. He tried to keep his composure, but I could see his eyes welling up a bit. He slowly lowered himself next to Alex, the look of shock remaining on his face. She leaned on him, burying her face in his coat. The two of them sat and held each other, her crying what seemed like every drop of water in her small body, him still trying to hold back the tears.

Deakins closed his eyes and sighed. He seemed to almost cave in upon himself at the news. His shoulders slumped, his head hung, and his whole body sagged. His hand came up to his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose, like you would if you had a migraine.

It was strange to see them from my new point of view, to know that I was literally invisible to the world. I instinctively stepped toward them, wanting to help, to comfort them, to put a hand on their shoulder and say that things would be okay. I was only a few yards away when I stopped, remembering suddenly that that part of my existence was over.

I stood there and watched them, a feeling of frustrationand torment building inside me, until it all became too much and I had to turn away. I tried to concentrate on the chips and candy bars in front of me, focusing my attention on how many grams of sugar were in the Snickers bar in E5, but it was no use. Even as itbegan to fade, I couldn't avoid the sound of Alex's tears, of Bobby running his hand over her back, of Deakins sighing occasionally.

I noticed right then that Mike hadn't made a sound since we left the apartment building. Deakins had moaned, Alex had wept, and Bobby had tried not to, but Mike had just sat in silence, never saying a word.

But it was okay. He didn't have to.


	3. Saturday, 12:00 PM

A/N: I don't think there's any canon on Caro's family or middle name, so I just made it up.

* * *

They buried me on a Saturday. 

There was a short church service in the morning. Everyone I knew came.

Mike broke his vow of never entering a church again. He sat right in the front row.

Afterward, they gathered around my grave. I looked at all the people who had come to mourn me – friends, the MCS squad, one or two of my neighbors, and a few dozen other officers. Former partners, members of my old precincts, some FBI agents. All there to pay their respects to me, the fallen officer.

No relatives. I hadn't had anyone I could call family in a long time.

I watched it all from a headstone nearby.

There were hundreds of flowers on my casket, tributes to me from people I'd known and even from some I hadn't. Carnations, daisies, baby's breath, chrysanthemums, sunflowers, irises, lilacs, and roses of all colors.

The crowd gradually dispersed once the priest was finished. After awhile, only Mike, Bobby, and Alex remained. The three of them stood there in silence, a normally odd group that was somehow perfect at that moment.

I stood on the grave of someone long forgotten and watched them remember me. They read the inscription on my headstone:

Carolyn Isabel Barek

October 2, 1964 – May 14, 2009

Killed in the Line of Duty

"To Protect and Serve"

_You will never be forgotten_

_We pledge to you today_

_A hallowed place within our hearts_

_Is where you'll always stay_

After a few minutes, Alex gave Mike a comforting hug. With one last look at my grave, she walked off. Bobby followed shortly behind her, leaving Mike alone with his thoughts.

He'd been quiet today, hardly saying a word throughout my entire funeral ceremony. He was quiet all the time now. My death had changed him.

The silence was uninterrupted except by his footsteps up to my casket. Resting one hand on its surface, he brought the other to the place where my head was covered by smooth, polished mahogany. There he placed a single white lily. It stood out among the mass of arrangements, the flowers left there by those merely observing tradition. I'd told him once that lilies were my favorite flower. He always got me pink ones on my birthday.

As he turned his gaze away from my body, he looked straight at where my spirit was standing, arms crossed in my usual pose of stubbornness toward him.

I think he might have seen me that day. I wanted so badly for him to be able to, and I knew he wanted nothing more than for me to be near him again.

For a moment, time ceased to pass as we stared at each other. The look he gave me was heartbreaking. I could see in his eyes the desperate hope that this was real.

I smiled, telling him in my own way that I really was with him. I saw his eyes brighten at it. I tried to speak, to tell him all the things that I never had in life, but my ethereal form didn't let me.

As abruptly as I had appeared, I was gone. I felt myself being whisked away back to Heaven. My words were left unspoken.

There are some barriers that no one can cross.

* * *

It took me awhile to get used to Heaven. 

It's beautiful up here. Heaven has everything you could ever want, with one glaring exception: the absence of those we leave behind.

That's what I couldn't get used to. I could still see everything that was happening down on Earth now that I was gone. I just wasn't a part of it anymore.

It eventually became my favorite part of Heaven, watching people as they went about their day.

Some days I would watch my old squad go about their business deciphering evidence, interviewing witnesses, interrogating suspects, and eventually solving the crime. My view of the world was much clearer from my new vantage point. People are surprisingly easy to read when you aren't around for them to hide from.

I didn't always watch my former colleagues. Sometimes I'd pick someone off the street and watch them wander around New York, just to see how they lived. I always prayed for them afterward, for God to help them along in their lives.

I didn't always pick New Yorkers, either. I watched people from all over the country. Once I followed a kindergarten teacher from Oklahoma. I prayed extra hard for her.

Occasionally I'd even use someone from another country. One time I tagged along with a resistance fighter in North Korea. That night I thanked God for letting me live in America.

But mostly I watched Mike.

I would see him in the squad room, there physically but not mentally. I knew he thought about me every day, if not every minute.

I could see how everyone but the captain, Bobby, and Alex shrunk away, not sure how to act around him anymore.

I would watch him go home at night to the apartment we had shared, the only place he ever let himself dwell on me. He would sit on our couch and stare for hours at his favorite picture of us, the one from the Christmas party. He always teased me and said that the red dress I was wearing in the picture made him want to stay in the apartment all night instead of going out. The comment was always accompanied by one of his suggestive eyebrow wiggles, which in turn led to him getting smacked upside the head.

He spent endless hours just sitting around the apartment, reliving all the memories of me that came with the surroundings. I was everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. He saw me in everything, especially our 3rd floor walkup. It didn't take long for him to move to a new apartment.

He changed dramatically in the aftermath of my murder. The old playful Mike was replaced with a new subdued version. He brushed off almost everyone who tried to talk to him and never went out anymore.

I wanted to tell him that it was okay to be happy again, that he was allowed to have fun. He needed the friends he had left to help him get through this.

After awhile, he started to return to the Mike I had known and loved. He smiled again. Sometimes he laughed. Eventually he even started to crack jokes.

He never quite went back to normal, though. He had all the appearances of the Mike he'd been with me. But in his most private moments, the ones no one but us ever saw, he would pull out my picture and let the tears fall.


End file.
